Division Committee and Interest Group Reports, Midwinter 2014

Affiliate Relations Committee

The committee met on Sunday, January 26, 2014 at 1pm. Two program proposals were approved for Affiliates Showcase scheduled for ALA Annual Conference 2014. Shannon Tennant is coordinating the showcase. Presenters will be encouraged to develop their presentations further through ALCTS channels as possible continuing education offerings or publications. Suggestions will also be offered to those whose programs were not selected.

Also:

Affirmed interest in ARC representation at ALCTS 101. (The former Council of Regional Groups had been represented.)

Naomi Young agreed to work with Christine McConnell, ALCTS Office, on website and Connect issues requiring some training.

At Christine McConnell’s request, a liaison from ARC to the Preservation Week Committee (a PARS Committee) will be sought.

Budget & Finance Committee

The committee met on Sunday, January 26, 2014 at 2:30pm. Charles Wilt presented FY15 Preliminary Budget, as well as FY14 first quarter, FY13 close. The major action for this meeting was discussion and vote for approval of FY15 Preliminary Budget. This budget was approved and presented to ALCTS Board.

FY14 first quarter was discussed. We are running very close to budget. CE is doing well, and the symposium went well with higher than expected attendance. Expenses are slightly higher than budget on salary, but this was anticipated increase for staff that came too late to be included in FY14 budget (accounted for in FY15 Preliminary).

FY13 close was discussed. It was down slightly. Continuing education was down slightly in FY13. There were some extra expenses for Preservation Week. Brief report on ALA Planning and Budget Assembly (PBA) from Vicki Sipe--ALA FY13 close showed deficit of $500,000+ (smaller shortfall than FY12).

Discussion on role of PBA, as well as a return to hour and half meeting.

Brief report on ALCTS Board actions from their initial meeting on Friday. ALCTS President Genevieve Owens spoke on three themes for this year--Financial stability, organizational flexibility, and excellence. ALCTS President-Elect Mary Page spoke on finding volunteers for ALCTS committees.

—Reported by Vicki Sipe

Fundraising Committee

The Fundraising Committee discussed the mid-year wrap-up of activities and donations in the ALCTS Fundraising Tracking Spreadsheet for 2013-2014 (FY14). The ALCTS Fundraising Committee was very pleased to announce that the committee and PWG met our fundraising goals and we have raised 100 percent of last year’s cash donations.

The committee then reviewed the donation-in-process activity to date for FY14, for ALCTS programs and events, including preservation donations, as well as general fundraising activities. The committee also reviewed the following:

Donor Acknowledgement Guidelines – The committee discussed the new donor acknowledgment guidelines. Lenore also handed this out to the division level committee chairs at Midwinter Meeting.

Security on the GiveALA site. The committee discussed why the GiveALA donation site is password protected and allows only ALA members to donate.

Sponsorship Levels documents and site – This site needs updating. The committee decided that it will include more general fundraising terminology and information about in-kind donations.

The committee raised question about how the donation funds are allocated at ALCTS and suggested that the Fundraising Chair (currently Lenore) is made a member of the Budget and Financing Committee.

Lenore met with Charles Wilt to discuss Fundraising Committee matters

Asked about the security on the GiveALA site (see notes above).

Discussed how to thank vendors for events, programs, online courses, for example, in email messages or other postings. Suggested the language, “This [event, program, other] is generously sponsored by [vendor] or ALCTS thanks [vendor] for their generous support of this [event, program, other].” Charles suggested that they might issue a news release for major donations. We also discussed how to thank vendors at the President’s Program – Lenore summarized the meeting with Robin at Midwinter about this topic.

Discussed the future of donations at ALCTS and how Lenore can help after her terms ends in June 2015. Charles suggested that Lenore prepared a development plan about a fundraising advisory group, for the ALCTS Executive Committee meeting in October 2014. The report will include what the group will do, goals for the group, and what the group will advise about fundraising for the Fundraising Committee.

Lenore wants continuity for the committee, once she is required to step aside as chair in June 2015. Charles suggested appointing a vice chair for 2014-2015, who will work with Lenore and then take over as chair in July 2015.

Lenore and Wendy met and thanked vendors at Midwinter: Wendy – YBP, Readex, Elsevier; Lenore – bepress, OCLC, Serials Solution (ProQuest) – done by Barry; Harrosowitz, and Springshare. Overall, Lenore and Wendy thought it was very productive to do this and will continue in future.

—Reported by Lenore England

International Relations Committee

In keeping with the new possibilities for Midwinter Meeting, the ALCTS International Relations Committee (IRC) did not meet in person in Philadelphia. The committee conducted business via email, and may work via conference call this spring. The committee will also evaluate the impact of not meeting in person vis-a-vis our effectiveness.

The IRC did, however, produce an ALCTS Forum: “Fair Use and DRM in Libraries: Beyond The United States.” The speakers, and their topics, were:

About 45 people attended: not a large audience, but an attentive one, with interested discussion after the presentations.

—Reported by David Miller

Library Resources and Technical Services (LRTS) Editorial Board

The Board met on Sunday, January 26, 2014 at 10:30am.

1. Editor’s report: Mary Beth Weber reviewed her previously distributed annual report and noted that several papers had been submitted since the 2013 ALA Annual Conference in Chicago.

Weber presented two additions to her report:

The ALCTS Board of Directors approved a motion to publish LRTS electronically only beginning with volume 59, number 1 (i.e. in one year, to provide ample time for publicizing this change and to make the transition).

ALCTS has signed an agreement with Portico to create a dark archive for all the back issues of LRTS for a nominal fee. A press release is forthcoming, and Weber will also check with Christine McConnell, who handled this arrangement.

2. Book Review Editor’s Report: Norm Medeiros presented his report as distributed. The new form on the website to solicit book reviewers has generated several volunteers. He also reported success in recruiting book reviewers at ALCTS new members’ events.

3. Ideas for Encouraging Submissions/ Board members’ report on their activities to generate submissions: Board members spent time brainstorming ideas for submissions and new publishing models. They also discussed possible ways to recruit submissions.

4. Archiving LRTS minutes: LRTS minutes will be archived in the ALCTS IR (Peggy Johnson, former LRTS editor, has at least nine years of minutes, and Weber has the minutes from 2013).

5. Other Business: The question of eLRTS downloading statistics was raised; Mary Beth Weber will request Christine McConnell record and report these statistics to both the board and to the authors of the articles. Other suggestions included pushing statistics back to our authors, including the number of times their papers have been downloaded.

Both the editor and board members were thanked for their continuing work to maintain high standards for LRTS.

—Reported by Mary Beth Weber

Membership Committee

The Membership Committee met via GoToMeeting on February 3, 2014. (The committee also held an optional face-to-face meeting at Midwinter on January 25, 2014. Present at the face-to-face meeting were Susan Wynne, Kady Ferris, Art Miller, and Randy Roeder).

The committee discussed plans for this year’s ALCTS 101, an in-person orientation event held each year at ALA Annual Conference. Together with the ALCTS New Members Interest Group (ANMIG) leaders, it was decided to shift the starting time of ALCTS 101 to 7pm for Annual in Las Vegas. We’ll continue the speed-mentoring format that began a few years ago, but are considering changes to the topics offered. We also discussed various methods of promoting ALCTS 101 (discussion lists, social media), especially finding ways to reach library school students. ANMIG currently has a student liaison who is helping us improve outreach to students.

ANMIG and the Membership Committee are working with an Emerging Leaders (EL) team to develop a virtual version of ALCTS 101. Sojourna Cunningham, one of the EL team members, provided an update of the team’s work to date. The EL team met for the first time during Midwinter in Philadelphia. The EL team’s task is to create a template for a virtual 101 event, including recommendations for platforms, tools, promotion, encouraging participation, and evaluation and follow-up with participants. Early tasks include researching ALCTS itself, researching past in-person ALCTS 101 events and other in-person or online orientations of other divisions (and outside ALA), and developing a timeline for the project. Their final deadline is a few weeks prior to Annual 2014, so we hope to follow their template to create/repurpose content and offer a virtual 101 event sometime after Annual.

The committee has begun reviewing selected results from the ALCTS strategic plan survey of fall 2013, as well as the results from ALA’s Kitchen Table Conversations. We have begun discussing ideas for articulating the benefits of ALCTS membership and increasing membership and involvement in general.

The chair also shared reports from meetings she attended during Midwinter, including the Division Chairs meeting and the ALA Membership Promotion Task Force, as well as reports from ALCTS President Genevieve Owens and President-Elect Mary Page.

—Reported by Susan Wynne

ALCTS/LITA Metadata Standards Committee

The committee met on Sunday, January 26, 2014 at 1pm.

The committee refined a list of individuals to ask to speak at the session on schema.org at ALA Annual Conference. The committee also agreed to work with the CaMMS Continuing Education committee on a proposal for the CaMMS Forum at Annual Conference, focusing on BIBFRAME design and implementation views from the cataloging and metadata communities.

We will be moving forward with a community site around metadata issues, with content curated by community editorial volunteers. It will include metadata news, events, and perspectives from both within and beyond the library community. Full minutes and more information can be found on ALA Connect (http://connect.ala.org/node/192685).

—Reported by Jenn Riley

ALCTS Monographs Editorial Board

The board met on Saturday, January 25, 2014 at 4:30pm. The members reported out on progress with the three publications in process and received suggestions for additional authors where needed. There are currently three monographs in the pipeline in varying degrees of completion. This staggering of completion is exactly how the editorial board planned the work.

One new proposal was submitted for review. Two members indicated that they will not renew at the end of their term in June 2014 so additional editorial board members will need to be recruited.

—Reported by Jeanne Drewes

Program Committee

The committee met on Saturday, January 25, 2014 at 8:30am.

ALCTS President Genevieve Owens reported on the successful ALCTS Symposium and plans for her president’s program at Annual as well as other ALCTS business. The following points were discussed:

Reviewed programs and preconferences for Annual. ALA did not change any of the requested times for programs. The committee discussed questions arising from virtual appointments with program planners.

Approved a virtual preconference “Introduction to Library Preservation” proposed by Karen E.K. Brown. The committee will follow up with Karen to see if this can be turned into a recurring virtual preconference or symposium.

Discussed the idea of using a bookmark (physical object) for evaluations. The bookmark would have a link to an ALCTS evaluation form. A subgroup consisting of Erin Gray and Emily Sanford will draft some ideas to share with the committee by early March. Emily suggested we might want to include a QR code and use social media to push it out to ALCTS members. We might also be able to include the link in the conference scheduler.

A proposal for a virtual preconference on “How an Idea Becomes a Publication” from the ALCTS Publications Committee was reviewed. There is a limit to the number of virtual preconferences ALCTS staff can manage. Therefore we agreed to recommend the Publications Committee submit this proposal to the ALCTS Continuing Education Committee as a webinar series. Alternatively, the Publications Committee might chose to wait and consider this for a 2015 Midwinter virtual symposium or 2015 Annual virtual preconference.

An update on the work of the Program Task Force was shared by Reeta, Susan and Julie. Discussion so far has focused on the “How to Plan an Event” section of the ALCTS website and the process for planning programs. There is also confusion/tension between the formal programming that goes through our committee and the “programs” that interest groups hold.

The committee reviewed some new initiatives which have been implemented this year. Liaisons from the Program Committee have been assigned to all planners. Instead of scheduling in-person meetings with planners at Midwinter Meeting, the committee arranged virtual appointments in January prior to Midwinter. Both changes were enthusiastically received.

In other business, section representatives were asked to encourage their sections for proposals for 2015. It’s never too early to think about a program, preconference or virtual session.

At the Monday meeting (only co-chairs and Julie were required to attend), the co-chairs and Julie Reese developed “to-do lists” from Saturday’s meeting and plan to create a checklist for planners, committee liaisons, and the co-chairs. We will also develop a calendar with a list of tasks for a particular month. We also agreed to set aside time at annual for in-person appointments with potential program planners.

A call for program proposals for the upcoming Annual Conference and Midwinter Meeting will go out sometime in March.

—Reported by Susan Davis

Creative Ideas in Technical Services Interest Group

The Creative Ideas in Technical Services Interest Group met on Sunday, January 26th, 2014. A total of 48 academic, school, and public librarians and LIS graduate students attended the round table discussions. There were three separate tables, with timely and engaging topics. Stephen Brooks from The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill facilitated the table that discussed successful collaborations between technical services and public services. Susanne Clement and Liz Woolcott from Utah State University led a discussion on how they created a SWAT (Strategic Work and Tactics) Team to tackle backlogs and interdepartmental projects. Lynnette Fields facilitated the table that looked at the potential of digital objects and collections to open alternative paths for Technical Services librarians. The topic was developed by Rachel Jaffe and Stephanie Hess from Binghamton University Libraries, but they were unable to attend the session. Each table assigned a note-taker, and reported to the entire group at the end of the session.

—Reported by Lynnette Fields

Electronic Resources Interest Group

The interest group met on Saturday, January 25, 2014 at 1pm. Approximately 60 people attended the meeting, which consisted of a presentation by an invited speaker followed by an open discussion. Dr. Sarah Sutton of Emporia State University’s School of Library and Information Science spoke to us about the Core Competencies for Electronic Resources Librarians (CCfERL), which began life as her PhD dissertation topic. In 2011 NASIG proposed the creation of a task force to turn her dissertation into an officially sponsored document. In 2013, they officially adopted the Core Competencies.

Dr. Sutton’s presentation was divided into three parts: an explanation of the CCfERL and its history, a discussion of the current uses to which the CCfERL is being put, and a description of what is ahead for the CCfERL. The bulk of the presentation was the 2nd part, in which Dr. Sutton described four ways in which the CCfERL is being used. First, to address workflow and staffing needs within ER and/or Tech Services departments. Second, to prove that a single person cannot be expected to do all the tasks, or have all the skills, required by the CCfERL. Third, to inform education, both at the LIS level and the continuing education level. The fourth bullet point on this list was “other,” which consisted of things like educating administration and other stakeholders, informing assessment, and generating new research questions.

As for the future, the NASIG task force is currently working on a revision schedule for the CCfERL and on an addendum to the CCfERL that addresses the specific competencies needed for serials librarianship.

After Dr. Sutton’s presentation, the floor was opened up for discussion. One LIS student said that the competencies are being taught in her classes. Our co-chair mentioned that her department used the CCfERL to rate themselves in order to determine where they needed to develop skills. Someone asked if knowledge of copyright and licensing issues fit into the CCfERL, to which Dr. Sutton explained that those things are covered by competencies 1 and 4. One participant asked how you train for “tolerance for ambiguity and complexity” - a major aspect of the competencies. Another participant answered by explaining a training program involving problem solving at differing levels of complexity that they had done for the Electronic Resources staff at her library, creating a sort of triage environment for ER problems. A third participant commented that such a training program can be time consuming and that one should not expect to see success for at least 6 months. Sarah responded that “confidence goes a long way to empowering staff.” Someone asked about the relationship between the CCfERL and Jill Emery and Graham Stone’s TERMs. Sarah explained that in discussions with Jill and Graham they had decided that the two should not be combined because the two documents have very different purposes. The CCfERL describes a necessary skill set, while TERMs describes specific workflows for accomplishing a variety of ERM tasks. Finally, there was some discussion as to whether Electronic Resources Librarianship should have its own ALA section or not. The overwhelming majority thought not because our work touches on too many different aspects of librarianship.

—Reported by Jennifer Williams

FRBR Interest Group

The FRBR Interest Group did not meet at Midwinter, but is planning a program for Annual Conference 2014.

—Reported by Jeremy Myntti

LITA/ALCTS Library Code Year Interest Group

The interest group met on Saturday, January 25, 2014 at 1pm. Appoximately 20 attendees were present.

Still being a newer group, we ran the Midwinter IG meeting as a business meeting this year. On the day before, we had put on an off-site API hackathon and so began the meeting with a successful report of the all-day event. Next, we opened the floor to discussion of having another hackathon at Annual which led into talking about what other topics and skills were of interest to provide through this IG. Using the meeting session for instruction or topical presentations, as well as providing online resources, and even virtual courses or coding workshops were brainstormed. The group will use the LCY IG Connect space to begin a central place to provide resources and expand this group to and engage other ALA members, since we want to connect all librarians of all skill levels with code though learning and working with it.

—Reported by Emily Flynn

Library Material Price Index Board

Due date for compilers to have their article to Narda is February 28/March 1st as usual. Compilers should contact Narda if they are having problems securing their data, and therefore completing their article, by the deadline.

Old Business:

U.S. Periodicals Price Index Update – Steve Bosch reported that over the fall he and Kittie Henderson have developed a sustainable process by which they should be able to create a new USPPI table. We will continue the publication of the Average Price of Serials Index this year in addition to the revised USPPI so that readers will have a comparison.

Report on indexes:

a) Legal Serials Services – Ajaye Bloomstone was unable to attend ALA Midwinter. An update was not provided prior to the meeting.

b) North American Academic Books, Textbooks & eBooks – Steve Bosch indicated that B&T has different representatives this year so they had more questions about which data to pull for ebooks. He indicated that the data he has received so far looks clean and reasonable. Steve stated that he has been informed by colleagues that his textbook and ebook indexes are being used in some institutions as justification for budget requests.

c) U.S. College Books – Fred Lynden sent preliminary information on the U.S. College Books price index to Narda via email. She shared it with those compilers attending the meeting. It was noted that the average price for a Humanities book has gotten very close to the average price of a SCI & Technology book. The percent of increase in the cost of reference books is quite substantial.

d) U.S. Hardcover Books, Mass Market & Trade Paperbacks, eBooks – Catherine Barr reported that she has not yet received her data but has been told that she will get her data on time. She felt that she would be receiving it very soon.

e) British Academic Books – George Aulisio reported that YBP has changed the way it presents its data for British Academic books. He will review possible options for creating his index.

New Business:

Library and Book Trade Almanac “enhanced” version – It does not look as if this will be possible at this time.

British Academic eBooks – George had been exploring the possibility of creating a British Academic ebook index but was unable to get the data needed to do so.

—Reported by Narda Tafuri

ALCTS/LITA Linked Library Data Interest Group

The interest group met on Saturday, January 25, 2014 at 10:30 am. Approximately four people attended.

In attendance: Theo Gerontakos (co-chair) and Sarah Quimby (co-chair) convened the meeting. At various times during the meeting, Suzanne L. Thomas, Thomas Dukleth, Jim Morris, Annie Glerum were also in attendance. The following agenda was followed:

Theo Gerontakos attended both webinars. They each had 72 registered attendees. The December 5 webinar provided a broad overview of RDF, and the second was a very advanced session on transforming MARC with Python.

There was some discussion on how best to advertise this webinar more broadly. It would be nice to see more than 72 attendees for these webinars. Perhaps the interest group could take the initiative by posting the information on ALA Connect and other discussion lists.

Action items for the June 27 pre-conference were discussed, among them the possibility of getting a sponsor to pay for photocopying costs. Also discussed was the audience for the pre-conference, which is likely to be a mixture of beginners and advanced programmers. The deadline for a final program description is February 24.

(2.b.iv) Co-sponsoring with the ALCTS International Relations Committee a session at ALA annual: International Developments in Library Linked Data: Think Globally, Act Globally.

Theo Gerontakos will check into some of the remaining questions about this session, such as a proposed virtual preconference and who the speaker might be.

(2.b.v) LLD IG session (managed discussion?) at ALA Annual, Las Vegas. Do we want to continue with this format?

The two co-chairs contrasted the merits of the managed discussion session format versus the 90-minute uni-directional presentation. Uni-directional presentations lend themselves better to recording and making freely available on the web; whereas managed discussions are easier to put together and involve the audience more. It was noted that it is difficult to capture the entire content of the table discussions; perhaps at a future discussion table facilitators could be recruited beforehand.

A question: who is the audience for the Linked Library Data Interest Group? Those interested include those who have been working with linked data since 2003 and brand-new beginners. Gerontakos and Quimby discussed ways to reach both audiences while at the same time staying true to the intended audience, which is the linked data community of practice: linked data practitioners and programmers. One possible way would be to work with other sections to get more cross-sponsored sessions; another suggestion was to have two separate tracks for LLD IG programming. The possibility of coordinating a program with an organization or event such as LibHack was also discussed.

The meeting wrapped up with a discussion about how to get people more involved in the IG. Is there a way to ask for volunteers for web coordinator or other IG officers? Is it possible to start talking to others and delegating tasks?

The meeting was adjourned at 11:39am.

—Reported by Theodore Gerontakos

Metadata Interest Group

The interest group met on Sunday, January 26, 2014 at 8:30am. Approximately 125 people attended.

The first part of the Metadata Interest Group meeting featured two presentations. Diane Hillmann presented “The Other Side of Linked Data: Managing Metadata Aggregation” and Sandra McIntyre and Amy Rudersdorf presented “Harvesting and Normalization at the Digital Public Library of America: Lessons from a Diverse Aggregation”.

The remainder of the meeting focused on business details. Reports were provided by the programming co-chairs, the blog coordinator, and the CC:DA and MLA liaisons. The meeting concluded with a call for nominations for the officer elections at Annual and an open discussion on ideas for future programming.

—Reported by Maureen Walsh

New Member Interest Group

The room was abuzz with conversation on Saturday, January 25 at 10:30am during the ALCTS New Member Interest Group (ANMIG) meeting. Thirty-two individuals were present, a good turnout during the popular and busy Saturday morning 10:30 AM time slot. Co-chair Erin Boyd and Co-chair-Elect Elyssa Sanner welcomed attendees and gave an overview of ANMIG. ALCTS President Genevieve Owens and ALCTS President-elect Mary Page were in attendance and both spoke warmly of ALCTS and how they had benefited from professional involvement. They encouraged new members or those considering membership to get involved and to make their voice heard within the division, driving it forward and toward new and greater things.

Following the formal remarks, attendees met in breakout groups organized around topics of interest to new members. Breakout groups provided an opportunity for new members to dialog with each other and an ALCTS expert, sharing experiences and asking questions. ANMIG officers wanted to make the program interactive, as the group felt sometimes the best outcomes of conference attendance comes from one-on-one interactions. ANMIG invited eight ALCTS experts, established members who have been involved throughout the division, to interact and mentor new members. Each of the experts chose a topic to lead, which included:

Current Trends in Technical Services - Susan Wynne

How to Get Involved with ALCTS - Debbie Ryszka

Publishing with ALCTS - Dina Giambi

Being a New Professional - Lisa Spagnolo

Building your Resume/Curriculum Vitae - Cynthia Whitacre

Presenting at Conferences - Tim Strawn

Professional Networking - Betsy Simpson

Interviewing for a Technical Services Position - Carolynne Myall

The meeting concluded with the drawing of winners in the ALCTS Midwinter Games Twitter Trivia contest and an announcement regarding the start of the Philadelphia Photo Scavenger Hunt. (For more information, see http://connect.ala.org/node/216651). Co-chairs Emily Sanford and Erin Boyd thanked all for attending, especially our ALCTS experts who took time out of their schedule to meet with new members and encouraged new members to attend the ALCTS Member Reception that evening at the Sheraton. The meeting was a success and we look forward to our next big event, ALCTS 101 at Annual Conference.

—Reported by Emily Sanford

Public Library Technical Services Interest Group

Participants were welcomed and introduced. An open discussion was begun on the topic of the state of public library catalogs (and staff) during this transition to the new cataloging rules RDA. The chair led the discussion.

The interest group will meet again at Annual, and will discuss the possibility of sponsoring future cataloging programs.

—Reported by Michele Zwierski

Publications Committee

The Publications Committee organized the ALCTS Forum, “How My Library was Energized by ALCTS Publications!” to be held at Midwinter Monday, January 27, 2014. Dina Giambi was the organizer. Three speakers discussed how three different ALCTS publications have impacted their libraries. The speakers were:

Virtual Pre-conference 2014 Annual - Mary Miller has submitted a proposal to the ALCTS Program Committee for a three day virtual pre-conference prior to ALA 2014 Annual to be focused on the research and publishing process.

Procedural Change to Manuscript Proposal Review and Final Manuscript Review Approval Processes - The committee talked about the inquiries that were made and the discussions and recommendations from the Planning Subcommittee and the Streamlining Subcommittee in 2012/2013. The committee approved a procedural change that would no longer require all manuscript proposals and final manuscripts to be submitted to the Publications Committee for its approval. The various editorial boards, including the ALCTS Monographs Board and the Sudden Selectors Guide Board, are now empowered to take action on their own. The Publications Committee can be consulted, as needed. The Library Resources & Technical Services Board has always made content decisions without input from the Publications Committee. The change will be conveyed to the sections emphasizing that regular communicating regarding the status of manuscript proposals and final manuscripts between the sections and the division Publications Committee is key to making this new process effective. Any monograph proposal that does not fit within existing section editorial boards should be referred to the division Publications Committee.

—Reported by Dina Giambi

Publisher-Vendor-Library Relations Interest Group

On Monday, January 27, 2014 at 8:30am, PVLR held their annual Forum, titled “What Drives Acquisitions in 2014?” which brought approximately 93 attendees.

Three speakers discussed the economic constraints on publishers and libraries regarding the publication and acquisition of monographs. Julie Swann, University of Northern Arizona, began with a description of the acquisition of monographs at her university. Northern Arizona has a limited acquisition budget and has not acquired monographs through the traditional collection development process since 2006. All monograph acquisitions are done by demand-driven acquisition (DDA). Short-term loans (STL) are also used. There are poor usage statistics on print books. It is hard to find and purchase ebooks, but they provide an outstanding value on cost per use. Other benefits of ebooks include the saving of significant shelf space, provision of free MARC records, and their immediate availability.

Alex Holzman, Director, Temple University Press, described the current situation of monograph publishing among AAUP presses. AAUP sales have been flat over the last four years, which really means a loss of between 1-4%. AAUP presses publish predominantly in the humanities and social sciences, leaving the STM disciplines to commercial publishers. Ebooks account for about 15% of monograph sales while print books account for the other 85%. There is a decline in the sale of print books. AAUP publishers are receiving few subsidies from their universities. Publishers respond to this economic situation by reducing print runs, offering print on demand (POD), increasing prices, decreasing the acquisition of certain types of books, decreasing the marketing budget, and decreasing staff. In the past libraries accounted for 25% of AAUP monograph sales and course adoption titles accounted for another 50%. This situation has changed as students no longer buy or share course adoption books. Holzman asked, “How can libraries and publishers work together to make scholarship available?” He proposed that libraries and publishers engage in “knowledge unlatched on steroids” in order to increase the size of the market for AAUP monographs.

Michael Zeoli, YBP Library Services, titled his presentation, “Monograph Collecting in Crisis: A Publisher’s View.” He took the audience through the process of a publisher business review that YBP would conduct with publisher clients. He presented data to show that ebook sales increased in the second half of 2013. DDA sales are also up, but the increase in both ebook and DDA sales cannot overcome the loss of print sales.

All three speakers agreed that there is a need for each group, publishers, vendors, and libraries, to communicate with each other to reverse this downward trend. Each party is a proponent of greater access to monographic literature, not less.

The session consisted of two presentations. The first was given by Mary S. Laskowski, Head, Collection Management Services, Technical Services Division Coordinator, and Jennifer Maddox Abbott, Technical Services Project Coordinator, both at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Their topic was, “The Role of Project Management in an Academic Library”. The second was given by Laura Turner, Head of Technical Services, University of San Diego. Her topic was “Information Literacy and the Technical Services Department.” A question and answer period concluded the meeting.

—Reported by Betsy Appleton

Scholarly Communications Interest Group

The interest group met on Saturday, January 25, 2014 at 1pm. Approximately 110 people attended.

The first part of the Scholarly Communications Interest Group meeting featured two presentations. Mary Linn Bergstrom presented “Pilots to Program: UC San Diego Research Data Curation Pilots and the Library Research Data Curation Program,” and Michele Claibourn and Ivey Glendon presented “Data Services as Information Services: or, Old Wine, New Bottle.”

The remainder of the meeting focused on business details. A call for nominations for vice-chair was made and an open discussion on ideas for future programming concluded the meeting.

—Reported by Maureen Walsh

Technical Services Managers in Academic Libraries Interest Group

The interest group met on Saturday, January 25, 2014 at 8:30 am. “Technical Services Rocks Change” – This was the general theme of the Technical Services Managers in Academic Libraries Interest Group meeting at ALA Midwinter. Fifty people participated in five roundtable discussions led by members of the interest group steering committee. Each table presenter paired their topic with well-known song lyrics and focused the discussion on possible solutions to changes that have rocked our world. Topics included Avoiding “Sabotage” : training mechanisms and coping strategies for suddenly overburdened staff ; When I’m Sixty-Four: Problems of retraining, retention, and attrition in our graying profession; “Why-R-D-A”: It takes a Village (People) to Prepare for RDA ; “I Can See Clearly Now”: using project management in technical services; and “Come Together”: Getting Technical Services Staff involved in inter-departmental projects.

Table 1 – Avoiding “Sabotage”: training mechanisms and coping strategies for suddenly overburdened staff (Facilitator Amy Lana YBP Library Services) Conversation began around the various types of staffing, reasons for reduction in staff and how different types of libraries handle that reduction. Benefits and difficulties with cross-training as well as how to move beyond long institutional memories were discussed. The importance of being able to pass along information either in the form of a manual or otherwise was highlighted. Other areas of discussion included training, and motivation of staff and how best to avoid overburdening of select individuals.

Table 2 – “When I’m Sixty-Four”: Problems of retraining, retention, and attrition in our graying profession (Facilitator Forrest Link, The College of New Jersey Library, Ewing, N.J.) Conversations at this table addressed the fact that the library profession is graying, while advances in technology have led to the need for new skills and new workflows. While want to keep good people on staff, we have to ask if they want to keep up or does retirement beckon? Discussion centered on the problems libraries are facing with a graying profession, for example, personnel, union, and institutional issues, how to retrain, whether institutions sponsor courses to improve skills, and what options technical services managers have to retain staff.

Table 3 – “Why-R-D-A”: It takes a Village (People) to Prepare for RDA (Facilitator Shannon Tennant, Belk Library, Elton University, Elon, North Carolina) Conversation centered on various aspects of RDA implementation. Questions and helpful advise was shared about the following topics: training, the effect of RDA implementation on workflows and catalog quality, ILS considerations, Building Support for RDA Outside Technical Services, What Exactly Does It Mean To Implement RDA?, Reasons for Hybridizing Legacy Records.

Table 4 – “I Can See Clearly Now”: using project management in technical services. (Facilitator Stephanie Rodriguez, University of Houston Libraries, Huston, TX) Conversations at this table began with a question asking if anyone was using project management tools in technical services. Discussion then centered around determining what kinds of projects need management, and what project management means. Tips and advice for using ticketing systems, estimating project timelines and communicating project plans were shared. Questions about assessing projects and working with others to make a project successful were discussed.

Table 5 – “Come Together”: Getting Technical Services Staff involved in inter-departmental projects (Facilitator Melinda Flannery, Rice University, Huston, Texas) Conversations at this table centered on ideas for getting buy in on collaborative work both within technical services and beyond. Demonstrating value, replicating success, and working smartly were recurring themes throughout the discussion. Ideas were shared about the need to market the skills of staff and relate the work done by technical services to public services. Positioning the department as a research partner and finding ways to get others involved in keeping the catalog useful and user friendly were discussed.

—Reported by Teressa Keenan

Technical Services Workflow Efficiency Interest Group

The interest group met on Monday, January 27, 2014 at 1pm. Approximately 95 people attended.

This meeting consisted of three presentations:

Using MarcEdit and Excel to Identify Bibliographic Problems with Batchloaded Records, presented by Michael Winecoff, Associate University Librarian for Technical Services, UNC Charlotte. MARC records provided by vendors are often batchloaded without regard to checking for quality control. These records could have unknown problems that would otherwise go undetected making them inaccessible. This session showed one way using MarcEdit and Excel to quickly pull out key fields and scan for issues.

Adding XSLT to the cataloger’s toolbox: efficiencies for transforming and analyzing bibliographic data, presented by Annie Glerum, Head of Complex Cataloging, Florida State University Libraries. MarcEdit is extremely handy for editing and analyzing MARC files, however another useful program that can be tossed to the cataloger’s toolbox is EXtensible Stylesheet Language Transformations (XSLT). XSLT, which can be used in conjunction with MarcEdit, works with any XML-based metadata and can be customized for local needs. This introduction to XSLT covers metadata transformation to MARC21, quality control of vendor batch files, and XSLT code snippets.

A technology solution to process management: leveraging a Duke/IBM partnership, presented by Jacquie Samples, Head, Electronic Resources and Serials Cataloging Section, ERSM, Duke University Libraries. In the summer of 2013, a joint team involving the Duke University Libraries and IBM spent three months deploying and developing IBM’s Business Process Manager application framework (BPM) in the Libraries, showcasing the application’s capabilities by transforming the way the Duke University Libraries manage subscriptions to online databases. The Libraries’ successful collaboration with IBM and the BPM platform has become a foundational experience for developing a suite of workflow tools in the Libraries, one that will help transform other operational processes and improve the Libraries’ quality of service in nearly every area. This presentation described the processes and problems that led up to this transformative project, will provide a brief overview of the BPM solution in action, and will discuss the broader potential of BPM as a process management solution for the Duke community.

—Reported by Michael Winecoff

Transforming Collections Task Force

The Task Force met on Friday, January 24, 2014 at 3pm. The task force discussed a theme for Transforming Collections Task Force. Recommend “Leaping Forward to 2020 in Content Strategies.”

Discussion topics:

Need to better publicize Microgrant opportunities

Discussed ways in which collections are changing -- content is broadening

Potential activities:

1. Continue Microgrant program - Kady, Jim, and Connie will lead

2. We will contact former microgrant winners and ask them to do a webinar about their project.